May 4th 1970. Kent State University. Kent, Ohio.
Known as the Kent State Massacre. A line of Ohio National Guardsmen fired 67 rounds for 13 solid seconds at unarmed students protesting the Vietnam War. The event was heard world wide, inspired more protests, inspired songs (like “Ohio” by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young), changed Nixon’s presidency and is always recognized and honored at Kent State University. (more info)
Recently Kent State honored the 40th year since the tragedy. I, and a few other Kent State VCD Alumni were selected to design a logo for a benefit concert back in October. The date passed and the event appears to have been postponed, so no logo was selected. I made this at the Type High Press in the KSU Art Building as one of my 4 proposed logos.
Final GD 1 Image Layout Series
I’ve been doing some serious revisions lately on my GD Image/Type/Diagrammatic Layout Series. Here are the final versions of what I’ve done:
I needed to find a way to use an image, but not just “big is dominate” which was harder than you’d think. I think though, finding a creative solution to problems big and small is what this is class/major is all about… but sometimes its hard to find a way to keep yourself interested when it quickly becomes a process of pleasing someone and no longer yourself. After several revisions to the project, I did though, do my best to find that happy medium where I could still do my own thing. So I went back to my basic training type stuff and dressed up a simple concept instead.
My Type Dominate layout most closely resembles my original ideas. I ended up abandoning the robot that I had made and instead refined it to involve only the subject matter and the three image and the information. The “type as image” fading into the background was an idea that my professor gave to me to explore. I actually originally hated it, but decided to go with it for consistency with the headline and giving purpose to the color bars at the same time.
My Diagrammatic layout on the other hand, is quite a bit different. I decided instead to use King Kong to go with the Giant Monster in the Image Dominate layout, and then used the whole “movies being played at the KIVA” idea to bring them all together… even if subtly.
I think my biggest problem right now, is that I’m enjoying Illustration a lot more than Design. Perhaps there is some significance in that.
New photography on Flickr
I posted some new photography on my Flickr account. I’ve been keeping up with my goal to take a new photograph everyday. I’ll be posting a new one there every day until my Flickr Pro account ends in December. Today’s photo (and a few supporting shots) have been posted of this very old massive tree that fell on campus yesterday from the wind storm that blew through Ohio. The wind storm has left thousands out of power in Ohio with downed electrical poles and trees/branches/leaves everywhere. Check out the rest here:
USG - Dick Morris
Dick Morris is coming to Kent State on October 20th 2008. He originally was an aid to Bill Clinton in the 1990’s and now is a political analysts for FOX News and now a Republican. He’s made a living writing books about his time with the Clintons, as well as other books, six of them New York Times bestsellers. Working at the design studio for the Undergraduate Student Government put me in the position to make the advertisement that will be appearing in the Daily Kent Stater (Kent State’s independent student run newspaper) as well as the poster that will be around campus closer to his arrival.
I actually had a great time making this today. Working at USG has freedoms I do not get in class projects, giving me the possibility to do whatever I wanted. I chose to give it a fresh, yet retro look to give it enough punch that it will stand out. I kept in mind that it had to visually stand out to the student body through the poster, and be identifiable in the paper against the other ads running. I’m pleased with how it turned out, so I wanted to share.
Full color, full size poster:
B+W ad for the Daily Kent Stater:
In other news, I am planning on doing my best to take a brand new photograph everyday for as long as my Flickr account is active (near Christmas). Chelsea convinced me to do this as she is also just starting the project (and is a few days ahead of me). Today’s image is of my studio space I am sharing with three other designers at USG. Brian Buirge is our Senior Designer on the staff. He hired me on this fall to take his place when both he and Alan Groudle graduate in December. So since I will be spending my time there, I figured I’d make that my first post. So keep checking back, or bookmark it, there should be new stuff everyday on Flickr:
UPDATE: I talked with the guy in charge of USG today. He said that he really liked my poster and wants a color version for the Daily Kent Stater ad as well. Which is really fantastic and a huge compliment considering how much it costs to run a quarter page color ad per day.
photo sighting
I posted about this on another site, but it’s relative to this too. The photo I posted below here is a shot I took for the Photography 28000 class at Kent State University. This photo and several others I had taken through out the semester, as coursework, made their way recently into the slideshow of around 200 photographs (taken for the class) and shown to the president of the university to show the progress the new Photographic Illustration major has had. In addition to that, my photograph below has also made its way on to the new Visual Communication Design major website (vcd.kent.edu) under the student work section of the site. My name isn’t credited right now, but I believe it will be soon.
Another fun fact, if you wait for the intro to play, then click on “Photographic Illustration” the photograph of the professor and student right before the description of Photo-Ill show up on the main screen is a photograph of me and Chris Ransom…. I looked particularly scruffy that day, I didn’t even know it was me until someone told me. Anyhow, thats all. Just something worth sharing.
